Satellite stocks

[fatjohn1408]

I do not understand why the entire sector has been massively underperforming these last 5 years.
I understand that intelsat has huge debt issues but also SES is massively down (another 8% today after 2017 earnings) eutelsat is also down wrt 5 years ago only viasat is up but is also underperforming the market over the past 5 years.

It seems to me though that multiple drivers are underway to make the cost per transponder in orbit way cheaper.

First we have general miniturisation that drives the actual capacity of a satellite per kg of payload up
Then there are launch costs that are going down for the first time in a long time now that Falcon 9 is mature and will continue to since Ariane 6 is expected to come online sooner than originally planned.
And thirdly there is the advent of electrical propulsion that is causing overall ratio of payload to propellant to shift.

So why are these three drivers not making the sector as a whole more profitable?
Is the market just not seeing this?
I am myself contemplating to buy SES because in addition to this i find the exposure to internet in space with O3b networks fascinating.

Here's some additional reading material on the topic: https://www.nanalyze.com/2018/01/10-satellite-stocks-newspace-portfolio/

[Hobbes-22]

There's been a massive increase in terrestrial TV supply. First, digital TV gave consumers access to many more channels via CATV networks. Then, home internet connectivity arrived at a point where internet TV (Netflix et al) became viable.
Those would reduce demand for satellite TV, I expect.

[Jim]

There's been a massive increase in terrestrial TV supply. First, digital TV gave consumers access to many more channels via CATV networks. Then, home internet connectivity arrived at a point where internet TV (Netflix et al) became viable.
Those would reduce demand for satellite TV, I expect.

I dropped satellite TV and went to internet TV (Sling, PS Vue and DirecTV now) with OTA for HD local channels.

[pippin]

GEO comsats are probably going away.
Media com converge towards internet distribution for which GEO latency is too long, terrestrial infrastructure is seeing massive investments and now it looks like LEO constellations are coming back so the GEO providers will get limited to niche applications.
Not really a growth outlook.

[Dao Angkan]

With all of those recent downwards pressures on costs, it must also affect the current and future valuations of their previously launched birds. A GEO sat with a lifetime of 20 years launched 10 years ago is probably worth far less now than it was originally projected to prior to launch.